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Past Reviews

Johnny Porno

It's 1973 all over again ...

Reviews to date

“Mr. Stella is a natural. As soon as I finished Johnny Porno I gave the book to my son so we could both be wiser-guys. Now I’m going to find all his other novels. He’s a true master.”—Dow Mossman, The Stones of Summer

“... Elmore Leonard fans are going to love Stella’s entirely original contribution to the slice-of-criminal-life genre, down-and-dirty division ... This is the seventh novel from Stella (Mafiya, 2008), who has made the underside of the New York underworld his home.”—Elliott Swanson (Booklist)

“Set in New York City in 1973, Stella’s vibrant seventh crime novel catches the cadence and daily grind of organized crime grunts … Stella tosses an eclectic cast of characters into the mix … admirers of Elmore Leonard and George V. Higgins will be happy.”—Publishers Weekly

“Johnny Porno is in many ways a master’s class on how to write a novel ... The dialog flows so smooth you’d swear you were over hearing someone’s conversation... He drops you in the middle and lets the reveals of the narrative come naturally through the dialog... Bottom line is that Johnny Porno is one of the best books I’ve read so far this year.”>—Brian Lindenmuth (Spinetingler Magazine)

“Stella has fun with DEEP THROAT throughout the book, including the idea to sell fake autographed panties ... the book is so well-crafted and well-paced that it’s going to make more than a few best-of lists when the time comes. Stella never goes for the cheap outs, letting these characters develop over the course of his story ... Not only is it a throwback to the 1970s generation, but one that blows away most set in the present day.”—Bruce Grossman (Bookgasm)

“Based on my experience with Johnny Porno — I haven't read his other books but plan to remedy that soon (Charlie Opera is $2.00 on Smashwords) — I must say that Charlie Stella is one of the best writers the crime genre currently has to offer. He's a natural wordsmith, putting down the way people really talk in a way that still reads smoothly — not an easy task. The fact that Stark House Press, who previously focused on reprinting "lost" pulp novels, chose Stella as their first original author — after author Ed Gorman recommended him upon reading the manuscript — says a lot about his peers' respect for him.”— Craig Clarke (Somebody Dies)

“Psycho cops, bent cops, straight cops, Feds, wiseguys, good women, bad women,really bad women, guys on the make, gamblers, dumbasses, good guys, bad guys. This book's got 'em all (and more), and all so well-drawn that they seem like real people. There are also three or four plots going in, and they all converge in the final pages. I don't know how Stella managed to keep all the balls in the air, but he doesn't drop a one. Stark House's first original is a winner.”—Bill Crider, author of the Sheriff Dan Rhodess series and several other novels

“Stella is of the George V. Higgins school and tells the story through compelling dialogue ... Like Higgins, Stella isn’t afraid to let action occur offstage, to be described by the principals after the fact. In Stella’s hands, this adds to the suspense, as he understands every overt climax lessens tension at its conclusion, while covert climaxes continue to ratchet it up.”>—Dana King, (New Mystery Reader)

“Charlie Stella has a gift for nailing the colorful characters in this seedy little corner of New York. The dialog couldn’t be more authentic, and from page one I was transported to a hot, gritty landscape full of guys who say ‘yous’ and women who are used to being used ... I relished how the focus was on the guys at the bottom of the totem pole, and I got to see what happens to the drivers, runners, and climbers who associate with organized crime. It ain’t pretty.”> —Rebecca Baumann, (Dirty Sexy Books)

A plot whose pacing is as fast as a pack of greyhounds and at the same time, miraculously, as crazily and craftily constructed as a Marx Brothers movie or a Rube Goldberg machine. A hungry menagerie of good guys and bad guys at feeding time. A writing style that’s top-shelf. Some side-orders of Suspense. Romance. Black Humor. All seasoned liberally with Sex, Violence, Drugs, and Rock and Roll. What else will readers find in JOHNNY PORNO? A novel that shouldn’t be this much fun or pleasurable. That’s Charlie Stella’s real crime.—Lynn Kostoff, Author of Late Rain (Tyrus Books 2010), A Choice Of Nightmares (New Pulp Press 2010), The Long Fall (Carroll and Graf 2003)

“This is a hell of a novel. Epic, yet human scale... It s wonderfully fresh and alive.”—Craig McDonald, author of Head Games, Toros and Torsos and Print The Legend

Johnny Porno is a terrific Nixon Era crime caper reminiscent of Elmore Leonard. The story line is fast-paced, filled with action and violence, and stars a seemingly hapless chump struggling to survive in a cesspool. With the fun look at pop culture in circa 1973 enhancing the plot, readers, especially boomers, will enjoy Johnny Porno’s New York joy ride.—Harriet Klausner (The Mystery Gazette)

“... this has all the trappings of classic Stella – decent guys, wise guys of various standing in the mob, good/dirty cops, but most importantly, dialogue that makes you want to stand up and beg for more. Through Stella, you can practically smell the garlic on the breath of the wiseguys trying to intimidate, strain to hear cops jerking each other around through hot dog stuffed faces, wince at the lunacy of an ex-wife going off the deep end, and nod approvingly when someone does a decent thing for Johnny. Why Stella’s books aren’t flying off the main table at the front door of Barnes/Noble and Borders is, in itself, a crime.”—East Coast Don (Men Reading Books)

“Charlie Stella's JOHNNY PORNO: absolutely excellent. Guy does dialogue like no one else.”— Russel D. McLean, Author of The Good Son and The Lost Sister(From an Interview with CRIME SCENE NI (Northern Ireland))

“Johnny Porno is exactly that – a hard man chasing the tail that won’t pay for the tears. By first reminding us of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and then translating its rhetorical question into the vernacular of our romantically challenged times, Stella’s way with words does the near impossible; it finds a way from pornography to romance in the paradox of power and impotence peculiar to all of us: ‘Fuck’s in a name?’”— Len Wanner, University of Edinburgh.

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Charlie delivered papers, unloaded watermelons, cooked at McDonalds, cleaned dishes at a catering hall, worked in a cardboard factory, rolled posters, worked in his father’s head shop, was a bouncer, worked security, buffed hallways, cleaned apartments, humped sheetrock, was a ten year union window cleaner atop Manhattan’s skyscrapers, was a word processing operator-supervisor-manager and director, coached football, has had novels published here, Russia, Italy, Poland, Mexico and the UK, and did that knockaround stuff for 18 years before meeting his wife, the woman who straightened him out (in a good way). He earned his MFA degree from Southern New Hampshire University at age 57. He continues to write crime novels and has expanded his horizons to include ghostwriting non-fiction—Dogfella: How an Abandoned Dog Named Bruno Turned This Mobster's Life Around--A Memoir will be published in May of 2015.

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Men Reading Books on Jimmy Bench-Press

Jimmy Mangino is just out from his second stint in prison and figures he is due to move up the crime ladder and become a made man in the Vignieris family. Jimmy isn't just muscle for some bottom feeder loan sharks, he is all muscle with a rep for having bench pressed over 400 lbs, a handy ability for someone whose life is tied up in intimidation and violence. You don't want him for a friend or an enemy.

Gangster wannabe #1, Jimmy Bench Press, gets hooked up with Gangster wanna be #2, Larry Berra, who needs help in collecting for an ill-advised loan to a old Cuban barber. Our barber had a thing going with a young bar owner half his age and took the loan out to help her out, but she just takes the cash and pushes poor Vittorio out and left to Jimmy BP's not-so-good nature.

But Jimmy is not working in a vacuum. Two decent cops, Pavlik and DeNafria, on the Organized Crime task force are working hard to get all the details needed to put him away even while each are dealing with their own demons of marital separation and a violent history.

Jimmy BP keeps sticking his fingers where they probably don't belong, giving our 2 good cops more than enough to keep track of to get him put back in prison. With the help of some dogged police work and the help of a jilted girlfriend, Pavlik and DeNafria follow Jimmy BP to a luxury yacht where he is set to become a made man.

This is the 2002 followup to very entertaining Eddie's World, but this one takes a bit of a different turn. In a number of Stella's books we find some decent guy caught on the edge of the mob. In Jimmy BP, the decent guys are the cops and the guy on the mob's list of up and comers, Jimmy, is a violent sociopath. Down in the gutter realism (or at least as much as a guy like me can envision such realism having never experienced it) carries the soul of this story. Some later efforts by Stella have a bit of a snarky grin, but this one spits in your eye, clutches your throat forcing you to struggle against the obsession of a man with but one goal, becoming a made man. Stella paints a very bad guy in such a light that the reader patiently waits for Jimmy BP to get what's coming to him, and when he does, while it's not quite what Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci in Goodfellas) gets, I found it to be every bit as satisfying.

I've got two more Stella titles to go and I'll be up to date on his catalogue of novels (Mafiya, reviewed by West Coast Don, and Shakedown). Each one I've read so far has some seriously tough dialogue and characters that are interesting and both sympathetic and unsympathetic at the same time. If you can find it, be prepared for a few lost hours at the doorway to the alter according to Stella. And there are far worse places to wait for Tommy Burns.